Concrete roads on a level section of terrain often have a crown, i.e., the center is higher than the, sides, so water will run off instead of staying on the road. On curves and other non-level roads, the crown is often eliminated. When sections of a road are slip formed, it often becomes desirable to form a smooth transition between a section of road with one crown height (e.g. a flat road section) and another section of road with a different crown height (e.g. a curved road section).
In the past, when it was desired to go from one crown height to the next, the operation was essentially a manual operation. There was a pointer pointing to a ruler to indicate the crown height of the pan, another such pointer to indicate the crown height of the dowel bar inserter (DBI) and a third pointer to indicate the present crown height of the screed. The operator on the ground had access to a switch for each transition adjuster for the pan, DBI and screed respectively adjacent to each respective pointer/ruler. The operator on the ground watching the pointers then had to exercise his judgment as to when and how much to raise or lower each transition adjuster to cause a smooth transition from one crown height to the next. When the switch was activated either up or down, the crown height was changed by manually moving a switch which actuated transition adjusters to move up or down.
Quite commonly, the operator would go too far up or down with the transition adjuster, too fast or not fast enough, thereby creating a bump in the concrete formed, thereby creating what in the industry is referred to as a "must grind". These "must grind" conditions create a considerable expense to the company forming the concrete slab because it is extremely expensive to grind off these bumps in the concrete.
Consequently, there is a need to produce paving equipment which will eliminate the need for personal supervision and eliminate the human error commonly found in this prior art manner of adjusting between one crown height and the next.